Assessment

Carbon 14 Dating in Practice I

Curated and Reviewed by Lesson Planet
This Carbon 14 Dating in Practice I assessment also includes:

How old is the plant? Here is a task that presents the exponential decay function for carbon 14 in a plant. Pupils use the function to estimate the amount of carbon 14 in the plant when it died and analyze the function to find what the half-life of carbon 14 is.

17 Views 16 Downloads
CCSS: Designed
Additional Tags
Instructional Ideas
  • Lead a discussion on carbon 14 dating and how it is done
Classroom Considerations
  • Task can be used as instructional tool or as an assessment
  • The class should know how to evaluate an exponential expression
Pros
  • The discussion of the solutions reflects upon the idea of half-life and whether the solutions make sense
  • Explains the function within the task
Cons
  • The first page of the task is a blank page that is unnecessary
Common Core